caa a22 4500 477090966 CHVBK 20180405111515.0 cr unu---uuuuu 170330e19960101xx s 000 0 eng 10.1007/BF01239347 doi (NATIONALLICENCE)springer-10.1007/BF01239347 Infertile seeds of Yucca schottii [Elektronische Daten] A beneficial role for the plant in the yucca-yucca moth mutualism? [Yaron Ziv, Judith Bronstein] Summary: The yucca-yucca moth interaction is a classic case of obligate mutualism. Female moths pollinate and oviposit in the gynoecium of the flower; however, maturing larvae eat a fraction of the developing seeds. We studied within-fruit distributions of four seed types (fertile, infertile, eaten and uneaten seeds) in order to evaluate costs and benefits in aYucca schottii population in southeastern Arizona. We focused on how the spatial arrangement of seeds affected larval behaviour and, hence, the costs of the mutualism to the yucca. Infertile seeds were distributed throughout both infested and uninfested locules. Additionally, moth larvae feeding in a single locule preferred fertile seeds and even avoided infertile seeds and left the fruit significantly more often when they encountered infertile seeds. We suggest that, regardless of the cause of infertile seeds, they function as blocking units within seed locules and therefore reduce seed predation by moth larvae. We also suggest that, together with certain other fruit traits, the presence of infertile seeds promotes the evolutionary stability of this pollination mutualism. Chapman & Hall, 1996 obligate mutualism nationallicence yucca-yucca moth interaction nationallicence seed predation nationallicence resource limitation nationallicence pollination nationallicence Ziv Yaron Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Arizona, 85721, Tucson, AZ, USA aut Bronstein Judith Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Arizona, 85721, Tucson, AZ, USA aut Evolutionary Ecology Kluwer Academic Publishers 10/1(1996-01-01), 63-76 0269-7653 10:1<63 1996 10 10682 https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01239347 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI 1 research-article jats NATIONALLICENCE 856 40 https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01239347 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Ziv Yaron Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Arizona, 85721, Tucson, AZ, USA aut NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Bronstein Judith Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Arizona, 85721, Tucson, AZ, USA aut NATIONALLICENCE 773 0- Evolutionary Ecology Kluwer Academic Publishers 10/1(1996-01-01), 63-76 0269-7653 10:1<63 1996 10 10682 Metadata rights reserved Springer special CC-BY-NC licence nationallicence BK010053 XK010053 XK010000 NATIONALLICENCE NATIONALLICENCE NL-springer